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The NHL usually isn’t a major source of drama compared to other professional sports leagues, but it definitely was on Monday night courtesy of a wild development involving a highly-touted prospect who was drafted by the Flyers.
I’m going to assume most people reading this aren’t intimately familiar with Cutter Gauthier, a 19-year-old Swedish-born forward who was selected by the Philadelphia Flyers with the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft.
Gauthier is currently midway through his second season at Boston College and has shown plenty of promise during his time with the Eagles. As a result, Flyers fans have been eagerly awaiting the day he makes his debut with the team—at least until they learned that moment will never arrive.
On Monday, the franchise stunned the hockey world when it announced it had traded Gauthier’s signing rights to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for defenseman Jamie Drysdale and a second-round pick in the draft in 2025.
The Flyers quickly offered an explanation for the fairly shocking transaction by revealing Gauthier had informed them he had no intention of playing for the franchise last year and decided to pull the trigger after he and his team essentially ghosted the organization in the months leading up to the move.
Longtime Flyers reporter Anthony SanFilippo also chimed in on the development while asserting some of the blame could be placed on Kevin Hayes, a Boston College product Gauthier said he’d been in frequent contact with who spent a few years in Philadelphia before being traded to the Blues over the summer after butting heads with John Tortorella.
"I talked to somebody in the organization…Kevin Hayes' fingerprints are all over this." – @AntSanPhilly on the Cutter Gauthier trade
(via @SnowTheGoalie) pic.twitter.com/2Czfxdwh88
— Crossing Broad (@CrossingBroad) January 9, 2024
That claim quickly came to Hayes’ attention, and he didn’t mince words when he fired back at SanFilippo with a comment that reads “This guy is a f—ing clown and making s— up.”
As things currently stand, this is a classic “he said, he said” situation, but it’s certainly one worth keeping an eye on as the dust continues to settle.